


tell the world I'm alive

by justsleepwalkin



Category: Men in Black (Movies)
Genre: Bitterness, Gen, Introspection, Jealousy, M/M, Mild Language, POV Elle, POV Second Person, implied speculated Agent Jay/Agent Kay, mild violence, neuralyzation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 17:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15029138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsleepwalkin/pseuds/justsleepwalkin
Summary: Your hands are clenched white against the silver of your gun, cradled between your knees. His position mirrors yours and it’s the closest you’ll ever get to being the same.





	tell the world I'm alive

**Author's Note:**

> Lately I’ve been having Elle thoughts because of side drabbles so this sort of came about as a whirlwind of her emotions and I wanted to write second person.
> 
>  
> 
> Who will save you now?  
> Who will save you now?  
> Tell the world I'll survive  
> Who will save you now?  
> Who will save you now?  
> Tell the world I'm alive  
> -Who Will Save You Now by Les Friction  
> ([♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ffst3XN3f8))

You were told they take the best of the best, but that you’re like him, that you proved yourself, and that’s enough. You think he’s wrong. You’re a fill in, just like him. A suit to line up in the absent void, and everything’s changing around that void that you’re not even sure how it was supposed to be.

You’re trained and the information is filed away in your mind with medical procedures. You learn and understand them more than you ever will your partner, and you think that’s okay until you _don’t_. Until you catch him staring up at the stars for stretches of time, unseeing, and then looks back at you like he’s expecting someone else. 

And it’s not the first time. 

You wonder why it should even matter. You both do your job. You catch skimmers and you make a name for yourselves and when Times Square is bleeding with violet-tinged oil, the only remnants of the invasion that pierced your eardrums, you think _it shouldn’t matter_. There’s too much else that does.

But you want to take a scalpel from the medics that respond to your call, peel away from their repairs on your ear canals, and just _stab_. Pierce through the back up his neck and drag upwards, find the secrets that he hides, the things he won’t tell you, the things that _eat him alive_ until he’s crawling on the ground like the worms scattering through the street.

He’s a medical mystery, you decide. _You only know how to interact with dead people_ he’d joked with you, but you don’t tell him that you think he’s dead inside. 

You work, you work, you work. Months and maybe a year and he’s staring at stars and you have a hand inside your jacket, gripped tight around your neuralyzer, and you just want to _reset him_ because _why_? Why aren’t you enough? You’ve done everything, you’ve become the best of the best, he knew you for almost the same amount of time so what’s _different_. 

It’s maddening and when he looks at you he flinches and laughs it off and states _you look like you want to dissect me_ and you do, you _do_ and maybe he sees it in your eyes because there’s a thin veneer of caution that slips over his features and you viscously think _good_ , it’s about damn time.

You tell him _he’s not coming back for you_ when you’re shoulder to shoulder hunched in an alleyway and waiting for your lives to end. _I know I wouldn’t_ and you might as well have killed him yourself, but you’re angry, and you’re so godawful tired that you can’t maintain the act anymore. He’s bent you into a new person more than any alien ever has. You’ve had mites in your skin and broken your arms and twisted your body to their own, but it’s her own partner that’s done the most damage.

_I don’t know what you’re talking about_ and it’s the way his voice is mumbled that you know he’s lying.

You spit _like hell_ anyway because you know it’ll jab in and you want to leave a mark before you’re gone, before you forget. 

Your hands are clenched white against the silver of your gun, cradled between your knees. His position mirrors yours and it’s the closest you’ll ever get to being the same. You weren’t a good fit. You were never going to mesh with him, and it’s too late for you. Even if you went to Zed and demanded a new partner, you could never go back to the person you were before this, before you were bodily dragged up a ladder by a human-sized cockroach. 

There’s only one way to do that, and you know it still won’t be the same. The mind may forget, but the body carries on those scars and you think you’ll look at them with cloudy eyes like your partner looks at the stars. 

_Do better next time, won’t you?_ But you laugh instead of plead with him, because if it’s one thing you’ve learned about him, it’s that he’s a self-destructing creature of habit. You remove a hand from your gun and pat it over his pocket, over his neuralyzer. _I want to go home if we survive this._

And goddamn him, he doesn’t even look forlorn. You think you see a spark in his eyes for the first time since you met, and you want to punch him. You’d scream if it wouldn’t give away your position.

* * *

He hesitates and you think maybe you should have just done it for him, as bad as it would have gone for you. This one thing you’ve asked of him, and he has the gall to hesitate. _Don’t act like you thought this would end any other way._

_Elle --_

You reach out like a python and grab his wrist in your hand, tight. You hold it steady and the neuralyzer stops shaking. You’re both silent. You want to ask him, want to demand _why_ , want to rail and shout, want to make him feel the way you do.

You lock it all down. It doesn’t matter. It _won’t_ matter. You let it all empty out and know that it clings to him as it goes, and that’s enough. He’ll never be the same and neither will you, and for once, that’s balance. That’s their balance. 

Pain and misery. 

You smile. _Do this for me, Jay. Let me leave you._ Like he did, like you’re sure others will. His hand starts to shake again even in your grip, and the bitterness wells inside of you and before you can open your mouth again, there’s a dizzying, blinding white, and the emotions snap before they can coalesce, and you’re free.

**Author's Note:**

> I do actually like Laurel’s character and it’s a shame we never got a bit more of her. I have serious doubts that her partnership with Jay went well, though perhaps not... to this level.


End file.
